Practical Guidance for Marriage

The family, says the UN Chronicle, “is the oldest and most basic unit of human organization; the most crucial link between generations.” This “crucial link,” however, is coming apart at an alarming rate. “In today’s world,” notes the Chronicle, “many families face daunting challenges that threaten their ability to function and, indeed, to survive.” What advice does the Bible offer to help the family unit survive?


To begin with, the Bible has much to say about how husbands and wives should treat each other. Concerning husbands, for example, it says: “Husbands ought to be loving their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh; but he feeds and cherishes it.” A wife was advised to “have deep respect for her husband.”

Consider the implications of applying such Bible counsel. A husband who loves his wife ‘as his own body’ is not hateful or brutal toward her. He does not strike her physically, nor does he abuse her verbally or emotionally. Instead, he accords her the same esteem and consideration he shows himself. (1 Peter 3:7) His wife thus feels loved and secure in her marriage. He thereby provides his children with a good example of how women should be treated. On the other hand, a wife who has “deep respect” for her husband does not strip him of his dignity by constantly criticizing him or belittling him. Because she respects him, he feels trusted, accepted, and appreciated.


Is such advice practical in this modem world? It is interesting that those who make a career of studying families today have come to similar conclusions. An administrator of a family counseling program noted: “The healthiest families I know are ones in which the mother and father have a strong, loving relationship between themselves… This strong primary relationship seems to breed security in the children.”

Over the years, the Bible’s counsel on marriage has proved far more reliable than the advice of countless weIl-intentioned family counselors. After all, it was not too long ago that many experts were advocating divorce as a quick and easy solution to an unpleasant marriage. Today, many of them urge people to make their marriage last if at all possible. But this change has come only after much damage was done.


In contrast, the Bible gives reliable, balanced counsel on the subject of marriage. It acknowledges that some extreme circumstances make divorce permissible. At the same time, it condemns frivolous divorce. It also condemns marital infidelity. Marriage, it says, involves commitment: “That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh.